Yes, absolutely! Having over the last 50 odd years gradually become a “lazy person” I can thoroughly recommend electric biking.
Without the use of an electric bike, I would still be using my huge, gas guzzling, four wheel drive car for even the shortest journeys, to get the papers, visit the post office or even drive a mile up the road to my local pub.
On the 1st January, I made a resolution to use my e-bike every day, rain or shine. Happily this was one of the easiest new-year’s resolutions I have ever made, and undoubtedly the only one I have ever kept. Now, several months on, over six stone lighter and an awful lot fitter, I am a cyclist, maybe not a cyclist that many vanilla cyclists would recognize, but a cyclist nonetheless. A cyclist who not only uses an e-bike for all shorter journeys but a cyclist who is constantly in the local bike shop spending a fortune on the same paraphernalia as any other cyclist.
If an electric bike has turned this particular “lazy person” into a cyclist, surely everyone within the cycling world must welcome the advent of e-bikes? The obvious benefit to all who makes their living selling bicycles, accessories and servicing such machines is to get people who would never have considered cycling, through their doors. Those vanilla cyclists who don’t like to see a “lazy person” overtaking them on that steep incline, consider this; would you prefer to meet, or be passed by an electric bike or a “lazy person” in their car on one of our wonderful country lanes?
Why though should we let “lazy people” take all the credit for making e-bikes so popular? They have been a boon to all those cyclists who have come to an age where “real” cycling has become uncomfortable or impossible; an e-bike increases life in the saddle by years. Commuters zipping through the traffic to arrive cool and fresh, mums cycling to school with the children or popping to the shops, even police forces needing to see and be seen, covering medium distances quickly and efficiently and of course all those who have improved their fitness by getting out onto the trails and hills. All these groups of not so lazy people should certainly be recognized too!
David Miall
